Human Traffic

“Pocketpedia of the trafficking in the 21st century”
To solve one problem, we first need to be aware of it's existence...

All of the Balkans, including Macedonia, is at the crossroads of one of the biggest human trafficking channels. This territory, as a source of human resources, is fertile ground for the transgression of basic human rights. This is one of the main reasons behind the creation of this publication, an informative ‘Pocketpedia”, representing short reviews of the events on all the continents, especially in the crises regions.It contains testimonies, statistics, actions, and the reactions of governments, organizations and groups, as well as the statements of institutions fighting against human trafficking. Human Trafficking is a global human rights problem. The attempt to define and classify the concrete issues which can be categorized as a violation of human rights is long-term procedure, undertaken with different approaches and understandings present in various cultures. The benefit of human trade is enormous, and it can expand to cover the whole globe. The abuse of human rights and labor is (dominant or predominant) dominated in the regions of Asia and The Pacific, Latin America and The Caribbean, The Middle East, and North and Sub- Saharan Africa. Countries in transition and industrial countries follow the regions stated above in the statistics for human trafficking and the violation of human rights. More than 3 million people per year are involved in human trafficking, with a financial revenue of more than 30 million dollars. Macedonia, as part of the Balkan Peninsula, is a crossroad for the most frequent channels of human trafficking in the region. This territory is a source for the exploitation of human resources as well a ground for the violation of basic human rights. There are several very important key factors for the further spread of human trafficking in this region:
• The incapability of the political structures to gain control over it
• The constantly failing level of the education system
• The taboos for this topic within the family circle
• The ignorance of the media

Those are the main reasons for the rapid increase in the number of human trafficking and sexual exploitation victims. As time passes by, there are more victims each day. The average age of victims continues to decrease, and most commonly, the target is the youth and the small underage children. Questions such as: why statistics show that the age of victims continues to decrease each year, thus making them the main target; who organizes and financially supports these actions of crime; still remain open. The questions are “why does trafficking still exist?”; “Who is supporting it?”; “Who benefits from millions of victims?” Perhaps it is the customs officer who turns a blind eye as the victims pass through the border, or the government employee who issues a false passport, or the big profiteers, or maybe all of us who buy products produced by exploited people and children. These questions may never be answered, but they will remain to interest (or maybe not) the high governmental structures in every society. However, these structures are on the top of the corporations, which benefit from all kinds of organized crime. According to the mentioned above, the main target group of this research are the victims of the human trafficking and the hidden structures who support the sexual exploitation of people. A wider group is the media, who are responsible for highlighting the problem, political structures and all individuals involved in society. Today, the trafficking of humans is deeply infiltrated in modern society, so this “Pocketpedia” is just touching the surface. It only represents an introduction of the types of this inhumane trafficking. One of my main goals is to reach the whole public in order to disclose the number of victims of trafficking and the billions of profits that are realized out of their abuse.